Reid’s response: “These ideas of my opponent are really extreme, I said CBO [the Congressional Budget Office], the actuaries said there’s plenty of money in that trust fund account.”

Experts say he had little choice but to give a wonky response. “You can’t come back on gender grounds to a female candidate,” said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania. “You have to turn the tables.”…